They're building up a healthy catalogue of fx kits and they're well worth looking into if you can tell which end to hold a soldering iron. NOS components, colour coding, pre-drilled encosures, not too pricey, excellent support and service.

I've just finished building the 'Ranger' treble boost kit (as an advanced beginner it was barely a weekend's work) and I'm very impressed with the kit, the (online only) instructions, Keith's helpfulness and the effect itself. I'll post pics and maybe even clips eventually.

Anyone else attempted their own build?

Last edited by Paladin2019 on Wed Feb 02, 2005 10:22 am; edited 1 time in total

I'm sorry about the image quality, I seem to have the only digital camera with auto-anti-focus.

The innards. I stripped some thin wire and used the stripped insulation on the legs of the transistor - very handy.

The box - finished with Hammerite Hammered Dark Blue spraypaint. I'm not sure it's supposed to look like this, it's rather 'grittier' than Hammered effect paint from a can, but nontheless looks very cool. This is the best representation of the colour.

Finally, a size comparison alongside a Boss.

Another quick tip, the power input socket is shaped so that you have to have it in place before you solder it, otherwise you can't fit it through the hole. I learned that the hard way. You can use masking tape to protect it while painting.

Yeah, I picked the colour. Boss Bluesdriver Blue. There's quite a few good colours in the hammer range and the plain 'brushed aluminium' look is pretty good too - see the finishing instructions on the site. I should have taken a pic or two before I sprayed it over.

I was going to add some text to mine but it would have been too much extra work and I know what the knob does anyway.

I've never played or even seen another treble booster, so I can't compare them. But I say go for it. It's just so satisfying to simply plug it in and hear it working!

I really enjoy building my own musical equipment. There's the beginnings of a pedal page on my site at http://members.shaw.ca/house-of-jim I started with pedals and got into building amps around 1998. Pedals are a good place to start though - you're not going to electrocute yourself with a 9-volt battery.

Those kits in the link look good, however if you don't mind sourcing your own parts they can be built cheaper. http://www.diystompboxes.com is a fantastic resource!

Hi Jim, thanks for the links. I should point out that 3 people die in this country every year testing if a 9v battery is working by placing it on their tongue, so you're not exactly right!

One of the reasons I went for the kit was because I'm a beginner and I wanted the convenience of having all the parts, the box and the aftermarket support in one package, but I can see how it could be done more cheaply.

I've heard about the 9-volt battery/electrocution thing but I find it pretty hard to believe. Besides, if someone actually dies from testing a 9-volt with their tongue I'd think it was God's way of "thinning out the herd" so to speak.

I've been browsing your pedal page and notice you made a special mention of the OC44 transistor in your treble booster - just thought I'd point out that the kit I bought has one of those as standard. Neat!

Yep the OC44 is great. Any germanium transistor biased properly will work but the OC44 is especially nice. That transistor was standard in the original Rangemaster but people have original units with OC71's and 76's, too. I have an old Mullard transistor manual that states that OC44's were optimized for high frequency work so it would make sense they'd wind up in treble boosters.

That's good to hear! Some of those old germanium transistors are hissy as all hell so it sounds like you got a good one. Playing a humbucker-equiped guitar into a treble booster into an old non-master Marshall or Vox is a beautiful thing!